Hard Evidence
by indigovioletstargazer
Summary: What is Peter Quinn stealing from Saul's filing cabinet? And why? Set post S2 E8 (I'll fly away). Contains some swearing & non-graphic references to sex & violence (because this is Homeland after all).


**HARD EVIDENCE**

...

Peter Quinn prised open another drawer of Saul's decrepit filing cabinet, his eyes darting to his watch, before he continued his precise and methodical search. He'd already been in the office for fifty eight seconds and as yet, nothing useful was forthcoming.

In the next drawer down, he glimpsed small plastic filing boxes, carefully stacked near to the back. Upon examination, they appeared to be all neatly labelled and archived by date.

Quinn's lips curled upwards, hinting at a dirty smile. He guessed that this might make his search even easier than anticipated. He lifted the lid on the most likely numbered candidate and pulled out a transparent plastic case, containing a small black rectangle. It looked perfectly clean and untouched, like it had been filed away on the day of recording, never to be accessed again.

_Typical Saul. Typical efficient Saul._

Quinn smirked, admitting to himself that if this item had been in his own possession, it would not have remained so pristine. It would have been inserted into his laptop at every opportunity. To reabsorb, to reanalyse... To endure. He already remembered most of the dialogue recorded by heart, but it certainly wasn't the words that he was interested in hearing again.

...

Quinn dropped the SD card into the pocket of his trousers, then restacked the plastic boxes and a firm hip shove sent the drawer rattling back into place. With any luck Saul wouldn't even realise that anything was missing. He gritted his teeth at the idea of keeping this newly acquired treasure in his possession for a prolonged period of time. Hell, he'd even make a hard copy or two, perhaps upload digital copies onto every device he owned. He almost broke a sweat knowing it would always be readily available now. Always accessible if the opportunity arose, for a personal communion with the contents. He could feel it's energy pulsating within his pocket, like something illicit that was going to take over his body and mind when he got home.

...

Quinn sped back to the block of apartments and ascended the stairs, two at a time, sprinting until the handle of door 202 was in reach. He removed his handmade security features; a taut strand of hair and a tottering pile of quarters. Once inside his sparse bedsit, he unzipped his messenger bag and extracted his laptop, casually propping it on the bed. He booted it up, unable to wait a nanosecond longer than he had to. He fumbled for the stolen SD card in his pocket, then deftly inserted it into the slot and waited.

...

As an elite black-ops soldier, Quinn had quickly learned to suppress most of the weak remnants of his humanity. Family ties severed without looking back. Friendships abandoned. Unknown targets, often civilians, assassinated with no questions asked. Whilst undertaking operations, it was essential to remain focused, cold, robotic and detached. Quinn's record was impeccable, but recently his icy exterior had almost cracked, fractured by the sudden expansion of his over-heating emotions within. He wondered if his colleagues had noticed his close call with self-combustion that disconcerting evening?

Since then, Quinn had struggled, conscious that his objectivity was disintegrating. He recognised the signs that he needed to vent, sooner rather than later. Like so many of his colleagues; drugs, sex, alcohol or violence were the pressure release valves of choice.

Last week he had attempted a drunken brawl with a cocksure banker, but then walked away, immune and numb to the physical violence that usually calmed him. Only two nights ago, Quinn had tried again, this time punching an anonymous, drug-fuelled teenager that he'd caught urinating on his car door. This assault hadn't relieved any of his errant emotional unease either.

It was only this morning that he'd had the idea about revisiting the audiological source of his discord. He'd already pinpointed the exact moment when he'd felt the stress cracks rapidly forming on the underside of his cold shell. It had lead to his theory that what he craved, was probably suspended impotently in Saul's old filing cabinet.

Quinn had decided that it was worth a try, anything to repair his festering cracks. He knew that he was weakened and vulnerable, not only to the unnerving emotional pressure within. In this mindset, he was also risking exceeding his tolerance to the external stresses of the job. Left untreated, the pressure differential could cause his total collapse. If he didn't explode, he would surely implode, the destruction coming from the outside in a crushing manner.

...

Quinn glared at the black screen of his laptop, knowing full well what to expect there. Nothing. Forever darkness. He began wishing that his mind could project his vivid visual imaginings, but eventually the steady dialogue began.

...

_How long do you think before they find us?_

Depends how hard they look.

_I'm guessing they'll look pretty hard... I was thinking... I've finally done it._

What?

_Burned every bridge. With Abu Nazir. With the CIA. With my family. I'm more alone now than I was at the bottom of that hole in Iraq._

Whatever damage you think you've done, the only way to make it mean something is to stay in the game against Nazir.

_No, that's over._

They need you. Roya said.

_Believe me... Whatever plan they had for me has already been replaced by something else. And someone else... __...I'm done. Let the CIA do what they want. At least I'll finally be able to stop lying to everybody. At least that part will be a relief... Will you visit me in prison?_

I'll probably be in the cell next to you. Which, I have to admit, isn't the future I imagined for us.

_Us? What did you imagine?_

I'm not sure... Maybe that if we saw this through together, if we finally stopped Nazir once and for all, then you'd be a real hero. And that fact... would somehow make everything you did before not matter. That it would all just be about getting... to there.

_Including what I did to you?_

Including that. Just wouldn't matter anymore. To either of us.

_You know how crazy everyone says you are? You're crazier than that!_

This deal of ours... I think it's a way out for both of us. You said you're all alone and... You're not.

...

Then the conversation stopped and the breathing began. The sound of movement, kissing, fabric sliding over bodies. Quinn heard them both sighing and he fought against the urge to put his hands in his pockets. That would wait until the next replay in a few minutes, if he could stand it.

Quinn slid his belt out of the loops in anticipation. He heard their loud moaning and friction begin. Then the rapid banging... What was that? A table? A chair? A chest of drawers? _A mirrored sideboard?_ Her delirious noises were almost unbearable for him. The ecstatic cries, the slickness. Brody's grunts drowned out some of Carrie's whimpers and that irritated him. Quinn wondered if there was any technology available to edit Brody out and just listen to her.

Quinn's mind drifted back to the monitoring desks, where he'd been pacing, seething that evening. He recalled his own awkward conversation with Saul, against the background crescendos of the gasps, panting and urgent moans.

...

_How far is the takedown team?_

Five minutes.

...

Don't do it.

_Estes told us to shut this down._

It is premature.

_Or maybe we should have done this weeks ago._

There is a fucking attack coming! And Brody is our only entry point to Roya and the cell.

_Why did you tell us where to find them, if you were going to pull this shit?_

You have got to give Carrie a chance. She's turning it around.

_Turning it around?! Is that what you think is going on there really? Turning it around? Really?_

Turn it off.

_No, tell me really, I'd like your expert opinion! Is that somebody turning something around, or is that a stage-five delusional getting laid?!_

I am telling you she can fix this.

...

Quinn's attention was jolted away from the memory of his aroused fury and Saul's discomfort and back to the black-screened, noisy laptop on his bed. He focused on their climax; strained sighs, panting, gasping, laughter, unintelligible whispers. Quinn gritted his teeth. He imagined how they would have been entwined; shaking and sweating. Leaking.

_Bastard! _Quinn thumped his fist on the mattress. _Idiot! _Chastising himself for not insisting on a video feed that night at the Chaptico Bay Motel. What he would give now to see Carrie writhing on the screen, being thrown around like a rag-doll. The wild look of abandon in her eyes.

...

Revisiting the recording of Carrie and Brody at the motel had not solved Quinn's problem in the slightest. It had simply made his internal pressure increase further, closer to breaking point. A few minutes later, the audio replay synchronised with his own thrusting hand, made it much, much worse, no relief gleaned at all.

So much for his grand theory:

_Replay the event.  
Process the emotions.  
Move on._

Sodden tissue in hand, he decided that there was no option. He needed to alter his venting methodology, yet again.

...

Quinn visualised making Carrie cry out like that for himself. It would be therapeutic to make her whimper _Peter,_ over and over again. He wanted to do everything differently than Brody had; not so pent-up, or so desperate and animalistic. He'd have to take it slower, tease her roughly with his fingers, then with his probing tongue, make Carrie beg for him to finish her off in the way she most wanted.

As an added benefit, it might even provide the hard evidence of just how _pretty__ likeable _and_ extremely__ reliable_ he could be.

...

_Reenact the event.  
Process the emotions.  
Move on._

...

Quinn deemed this new approach to be an appropriate, objective and scientific course of action.

A perfectly logical _fuck_, to serve no other purpose than the restoration of his cool equilibrium, that he had lost so completely when he heard Carrie lose herself.

**THE END**

**...**

**_Author's note:_**

_Thanks for reading this one-shot. Please review!_

_I wanted to write something a bit colder and darker than my other stories - a pent-up, imbalanced Quinn with flawed logic who might progress to being a danger to Carrie in the future._


End file.
